Chapter VII: Introduction (4)

From that time until the 15th of King Charles II., which takes in a period of 167 years, the commercial constitution of Ireland was as much favoured and protected as that of England. "The free enlargement of common traffic which his Majesty's subjects of Ireland enjoyed," is taken notice of incidentally in an English statute, in the reign of King James I.,[364] and in 1627, King Charles I. made a strong declaration in favour of the trade and manufactures of this country. By several English statutes in the reign of King Charles II., an equal attention was shown to the woollen manufactures in both kingdoms; in the 12th year of his reign[365] the exportation of wool, wool-felts, fuller's earth, or any kind of scowering earth, was prohibited from both. But let the reasons mentioned in the preamble for passing this law be adverted to: "For preventing inconveniences and losses that happened, and that daily do and may happen, to the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, and kingdom of Ireland, through the secret exportation of wool out of and from the said kingdoms and dominions; and for the _better setting on work the poor people_ and inhabitants of the kingdoms and dominions aforesaid, and to the intent that the full use and benefit of _the principal native commodities_ of the same kingdom and dominion may come, redound, and be unto the subjects and inhabitants of the same."

This was the voice of nature, and the dictate of sound and general policy; it proclaimed to the nations that they should not give to strangers the bread of their own children; that the produce of the soil should support the inhabitants of the country; that their industry should be exercised on their own materials, and that the poor should be employed, clothed, and fed.

The shipping and navigation of England and Ireland were at this time equally favoured and protected. By another Act of the same year no goods or commodities[366] of the growth, production or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America, shall be imported into England, _Ireland_, or Wales, but in ships which belong to the people of England or _Ireland_, the dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or which are of the built of the said lands, and of which the master and three-fourths of the mariners are English; and a subsequent statute[367] makes the encouragement to navigation in both countries equal, by ordaining that the subjects of Ireland and of the Plantations shall be accounted English within the meaning of that clause. Another law[368] of the same reign shows that the navigation, commerce, and woollen manufactures of both kingdoms were equally protected by the English legislature. This Act lays on the same restraint as the above-mentioned Act of the 12th of Charles II., and makes the transgression still more penal. It recites that wool, wool-felts, &c., are secretly exported from England and Ireland to foreign parts to the great decay of the woollen manufactures, and the destruction of the navigation and commerce of _these kingdoms_.

From those laws it appears that the commerce, navigation, and manufactures of this country were not only favoured and protected by the English legislature, but that we had in those times the full benefit of their Plantation trade; whilst the woollen manufactures were protected and encouraged in England and Ireland, the planting of tobacco in both was prohibited, because "it was one of the main products of several of the Plantations, and upon which their welfare and subsistence do depend."[369]

This policy was liberal, just, and equal; it opened the resources and cultivated the strength of every part of the empire.

This commercial system of Ireland was enforced by several Acts of her own legislature; two statutes passed in the reign of Henry VIII. to prevent the exportation of wool, because, says the first of those laws, "it hath been the cause of dearth of cloth and idleness of many folks,"[370] and "tends to the desolation and ruin of this poor land." The second of those laws enforces the prohibition[371] by additional penalties; it recites "that the said beneficial law had taken little effect, but that since the making thereof great plenty of wool had been conveyed out of this land to the great and inestimable hurt, decay, and impoverishment of the King's poor subjects within the said land, for redress whereof, and in consideration that conveying of the wool of the growth of this land out of the same is one of the greatest occasions of the idleness of the people, waste, ruin, and desolation of the King's cities and borough towns, and other places of his dominion within this land." The 11th of Elizabeth[372] lays duties on the exportation equal to a prohibition, and the reason given in the preamble ought to be mentioned: "That the said commodities may be more abundantly wrought in this realm ere they shall be so transported than presently they are, which shall set many now living idle on work, to the great relief and commodity of this realm.[373]

By the preamble of one of those Acts,[374] made in the reign of Charles II., it appears that the sale of Irish woollen goods in foreign markets was encouraged by England, "whereas there is a general complaint in _England_, France, and other parts beyond the seas (whither the woollen cloths and other commodities made of wool in this, his Majesty's kingdom of Ireland, are transported) of the false, deceitful, uneven, and uncertain making thereof, which cometh to pass by reason that the clothiers and makers thereof do not observe any certain assize for length, breadth, and weight for making their clothes and other commodities aforesaid in this kingdom, as they do in the realm of England, and as they ought also to do here, by which means the merchants, buyers, and users of the said cloth and other commodities are much abused and deceived, and the credit, esteem, and sale of the said cloth and commodities is thereby much impaired and undervalued, to the great and general hurt and hindrance of the trade of clothing in this whole realm."

After the ports of England were shut against our cattle, and our trade to the English colonies was restrained, still this commercial system was adhered to by encouraging the manufactures of this country, and the exportation of them to foreign countries. In 1667, when the power of the Crown was not so well understood as at present, the proclamation before mentioned was published by the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland,[375] in pursuance of a letter from Charles II., by the advice of his council in England, notifying to all his subjects of this kingdom the allowance of a free trade to all foreign countries, either at war or peace with his Majesty.

In the year 1663 the distinction between the trade of England and Ireland,[376] and the restraints on that of the latter commenced. By an English Act passed in that year, entitled an Act "for the encouragement of trade," a title not very applicable to the parts of it that related to Ireland; besides laying a prohibition on cattle imported into England from that kingdom, the exportation of all commodities except victuals, servants, horses, and salt for the fisheries of New England and Newfoundland, from thence to the English plantations, was prohibited from the 25th March, 1764. The exports allowed were useful to them, but prejudicial to Ireland, as they consisted of our people, our provisions, and a material for manufacture which we might have used more profitably on our own coasts.

In 1670, another Act[377] passed in England to prohibit from the 24th of March, 1671, the exportation from the English plantations to Ireland of several materials for manufactures[378] without first unloading in England or Wales. We are informed by this Act that the restraint of the exportation from the English plantations to Ireland was intended by the Act of 1663; but the intention is not effectuated, though the importation of those commodities into Ireland _from England_, without first unloading there is, in effect, prohibited by that Act.

The prohibition of importing into Ireland any plantation goods, unless the same had been first landed in England, and had paid the duties, is made general, without any exception, by the English Act of the 7th and 8th W. III., ch. 22.

But by subsequent British Acts[379] it is made lawful to import from his Majesty's plantations all goods of their growth or manufactures, the articles enumerated in those several Acts excepted.[380]

By a late British Act[381] there is a considerable extension of the exports from Ireland to the British plantations. But it is apprehended that this law will not answer the kind intentions of the British legislature. Denying the import from those countries to Ireland is, in effect, preventing the export from Ireland to those countries. Money cannot be expected for our goods there, we must take theirs in exchange; and this can never answer on the terms of our being obliged, in our return, to pass by Ireland, to land those goods in England, to ship them a second time, and then to sail back again to Ireland. No trade will bear such an unnecessary delay and expense. The quickness and the security of the return are the great inducements to every trade. One is lost and the other hazarded by such embarrassments; those who are not subject to them carry on the trade with such advantages over those who are so entangled as totally to exclude them from it. This is no longer the subject of speculation, it has been proved by the experience of above seventy years. Since the year 1705, when liberty was given to import white and brown linen from Ireland into the English plantations, the quantities sent there directly from Ireland were at all times very inconsiderable notwithstanding this liberty; they were sent for the most part from Ireland to England before any bounty was given on the exportation from thence, which did not take place until the year 1743; and from England the English plantations were supplied. There cannot be a more decisive proof that the liberty of exporting without a direct import in return, will not be beneficial to Ireland.

This country is the part of the British empire most conveniently situated for trade with the colonies. If not suffered to have any beneficial intercourse with them, she will be deprived of one of the great advantages of her situation; and such an obstruction to the prosperity of so considerable a part must necessarily diminish the strength of the whole British empire.

Those laws laid Ireland under restraints highly prejudicial to her commerce and navigation. From those countries the materials for ship-building[382] and some of those used in perfecting their staple manufactures were had; Ireland was, by those laws, excluded from almost all the trade of three quarters of the globe, and from all direct beneficial intercourse with her fellow-subjects in those countries, which were partly stocked from her own loins. But still, though deprived at that time of the benefit of those colonies, she was not then considered as a colony herself, her manufacturers were not in any other manner discouraged, her ports were left open, and she was at liberty to look for a market among strangers, though not among her fellow-subjects in Asia, Africa, or America.[383] By the law of 1699 she was, as to her staple manufacture, deprived of those resources; she was brought within a system of colonisation, but on worse terms than any of the plantations who were allowed to trade with each other.[384]

She could send her principal materials for manufacture to England only; but those manufactures were encouraged in England and discouraged in Ireland. The probable consequence of which was, and the event has answered the expectation, that we should take those manufactures from that country; and that, therefore, in those various trades which employ the greatest numbers of men, the English should work for our people; the rich should work for the poor.

Let the histories of both kingdoms, and the statute books of both parliaments be examined, and no precedent will be found for the Act of 1699, or for the system which it introduced.

The whole tenor of the English statutes relative to the trade of this country, and which, by our Act of the 10th of Henry VII., became a part of our commercial constitution, breathe a spirit totally repugnant to the principle of that law; and it is, therefore, with the utmost deference, submitted to those who have the power to decide whether this law was agreeable to the commercial constitution of Ireland, which, for 500 years, has never produced a similar instance.

It might be naturally supposed, by a person not versed in our story, that in the seventeenth century there had been some offence given or some demerit on our part. He would be surprised to hear that during this period our loyalty had been exemplary, and our sufferings on that account great. In 1641, great numbers of the Protestants of Ireland were destroyed, and many of them were deprived of their property and driven out of their country from their attachment to the English Government in this kingdom, and to that religion and constitution which they happily enjoyed under it. At the Revolution they were constant in the same principles, and successfully staked their lives and properties against domestic and foreign enemies in support of the rights of the English crown, and of the religious and civil liberties of Britain and of Ireland. They bravely shared with her in all her dangers, and liberally partook of all her adversities. Whatever were their rights, they had forfeited none of them. Whatever favours they enjoyed, they had new claims from their merit and their sufferings to a continuance of them. They now wanted more than ever the care of that fostering hand which, by rescuing them twice from oppression (obligations never to be forgotton by the Protestants of Ireland), established the liberties, confirmed the strength, and raised the glory of the British empire.

In speaking of a commercial system, it is not intended to touch upon the power of making or altering laws; the present subject leads us only to consider whether that power has been exercised in any instances contrary to reason, justice, and public utility.

When we consider, with the utmost deference to established authority, what is _reasonable, useful, and just_, principles equally applicable to an independent or a subordinate, to a rich or a poor country: _Quod aeque pauperibus prodest, locupletibus aeque_. Should any man talk of a conquest above 500 years since, between kingdoms long united like those, in blood, interest, and constitution, he does not speak to the purpose; he may as well talk of the conquest of the Norman, and use the antiquated language of obsolete despotism. I revere that conquest which has given to Ireland the common law and the Magna Charta of England.

When we consider what is _reasonable, useful, and just_, and address our sentiments to a nation renowned for wisdom and justice, should pride pervert the question, talk of the power of Britain, and, in the character of that great country, ask, like Tancred, who shall control me? I answer, like the sober Siffredi--_thyself_.

The power of regulating trade in a great empire is perverted, when exercised for the destruction of trade in any part of it; but whatever or wherever that power is, if it says to the subject on one side of a channel, you may work and navigate, buy and sell; and to the subject on the other side, you shall not work or navigate, buy or sell, but under such restrictions as will extinguish the genius and unnerve the arm of industry; I will only say that it uses a language repugnant to the free spirit of commerce, and of the British and Irish constitution.

Great eulogiums on the virtues of our people have been pronounced by some of the most respected English authors.[385] Yet indolence is objected to them by those who discourage their industry; but they do not reflect that each of these proceeds from habit, and that the noble observation made on virtue in general is equally applicable to industry; the day that it loses its liberty half of its vigour is gone.[386]

The great expenditure of money by England on account of this country is an argument more fit for the limited views of a compting-house than for the enlarged policy of statesmen deliberating on the general good of a great empire.

Very large sums, it is true, were advanced by England for the relief and recovery of Ireland; but these have been reimbursed fifty-fold by the profits and advantages which have since arisen to England from its trade and intercourse with this kingdom. This argument may be further pursued, but accounts of mutual benefits between intimate friends and near relations should always be kept open, and every attempt to strike a balance between them tends rather to raise jealousies than to promote good will.

It has been said that the interest of England required that those restraints should be imposed. The contrary has been shown; one of the maxims of her own law instructs us to enjoy our own property, so as not to injure that of our neighbour,[387] and the true interest of a great country lies in the population, wealth, and strength of the whole empire.

If this restrictive system was founded in justice and sound policy towards the middle and at the conclusion of the last century, the present state of the British empire requires new counsels and a system of commerce and of policy totally different from those which the circumstances of these countries, in the years 1663, 1670, and 1698, might have suggested.

But it is time to give your lordship a little relief before I enter into a new part of my subject.

I have the honour to be,
My lord, &c.

Eighth Letter.

_Dublin, 6th September, 1779._

MY LORD,

Between the 23rd of October, 1641, and the same day in the year 1652, five hundred and four thousand of the inhabitants of Ireland are said to have perished and been wasted by the sword, plague, famine, hardship, and banishment.[388] If it had not been for the numbers of British which those wars had brought over,[389] and such who, either as adventurers or soldiers, seated themselves here on account of the satisfaction made to them in lands, the country had been, by the rebellion of 1641 and the plague that followed it, nearly desolate. At the restoration almost the whole property of the kingdom was in a state of the utmost anarchy and confusion. To satisfy the clashing interests of the numerous claimants, and to determine the various and intricate disputes that arose relative to titles, required a considerable length of time. Peace and settlement, or, to use the words of one of the Acts of Parliament[390] of that time, the repairing the ruins and desolation of the kingdom were the great objects of this period.

The English law[391] of 1663, restraining the exportation from Ireland to America, was at that time, and for some years after, scarcely felt in this kingdom, which had then little to export except live cattle, not proper for so distant a market.

The Act of Settlement, passed in Ireland the year before this restrictive law, and the explanatory statute for the settlement of this kingdom, was not enacted until two years after. The country continued for a considerable time in a state of litigation, which is never favourable to industry. In 1661, the people must have been poor; the number of them of all degrees who paid poll money in that year was about 360,000.[392] In 1672, when the country had greatly improved, the manufacture bestowed upon a year's exportation from Ireland did not exceed eight thousand pounds,[393] and the clothing trade had not then arrived to what it had been before the last rebellion. But still the kingdom had much increased in wealth, though not in manufactured exports. The customs which set in 1656 for L12,000 yearly were, in 1672, worth L80,000[394] yearly, and the improvement in domestic wealth, that is to say, in building, planting, furniture, coaches, &c., is said to have advanced from 1652 to 1673 in a proportion of from one to four. Sir William Petty, in the year 1672, complains not of the restraints on the exportation from Ireland to America,[395] but of the prohibition of exporting our cattle to England, and of our being obliged to unlade in that kingdom[396] the ships bound from America to Ireland, the latter regulation he considers as highly prejudicial to this country.[396]

The immediate object of Ireland at this time seems to have been to get materials to employ her people at home, without thinking of foreign exportations. When we advanced in the export of our woollen goods the law of 1663,[397] which excluded them from the American markets, must have been a great loss to this kingdom; and after we were allowed to export our linens to the British colonies in America, the restraints imposed by the law of 1670 upon our importations from thence became more prejudicial, and will be much more so if ever the late extension of our exports to America should under those restraints have any effect. For it is certainly a great discouragement to the carrying on trade with any country where we are allowed only to sell our manufactures and produce, but are not permitted to carry from them directly to our own country their principal manufactures or produce. The people to whom we are thus permitted to sell want the principal inducement for dealing with us, and the great spring of commerce, which is mutual exchange, is wanting between us.

As the British legislature has thought it reasonable to extend, to a very considerable degree, our exportation to their colonies, and has, doubtless, intended that this favour should be useful to Ireland, it is hoped that those restraints on the importation from thence, which must render that favour of little effect, will be no longer continued.

From those considerations it is evident that many strong reasons respecting Ireland are now to be found against the continuance of those restrictive laws of 1663 and 1670, that did not exist at the time of making them.

The prohibition of 1699 was immediately and universally felt in this country; but in the course of human events various and powerful reasons have arisen against the continuance of that statute, which did not exist, and could not have been foreseen when it was enacted.

At the Restoration the inhabitants of Ireland consisted of three different nations--English, Scotch, and Irish--divided by political and religious principles, exasperated against each other by former animosities, and by present contests for property. When the settlement of the country was completed, the people became industrious, manufactures greatly increased, and the kingdom began to flourish. The prohibition of exporting cattle to England, and perhaps that of importing directly from America the materials of other manufactures, obliged the Irish to increase and to manufacture their own material. They made so great a progress in both, from 1672 to 1687, that in the latter year the exports of the woollen manufacture alone amounted in value to L70,521 14_s._ 0_d._

But the religious and civil animosities continued. The papists objected to the settlement of property made after the Restoration,[398] wished to reverse the outlawries, and to rescind the laws on which that settlement was founded, hoped to establish their own as the national religion, to get the power of the kingdom into their own hands, and to effect all those purposes by a king of their own religion. They endeavoured to attain all those objects by laws[399] passed at a meeting which they called a parliament, held under this prince after his abdication; and by their conduct at this period, as well as in the year 1642,[400] showed dispositions unfavourable to the subordination of Ireland to the Crown of England. They could not be supposed to be well affected to that great prince who defeated all their purposes.

At the time of the revolution the numbers of our people were again very much reduced; but a great majority of the remaining inhabitants consisted of papists. Those, notwithstanding their disappointment at that era, were thought to entertain expectations of the restoration of their Popish king, and designs unfavourable to the established constitution in Church and State. It is not to the present purpose to inquire how long this disposition prevailed. It cannot be doubted but that this was the opinion conceived of their views and principles at the time of passing this law in the year 1699.

England could not then consider a country under such unfortunate circumstances as any great additional strength to it. Foreign Protestants were invited to settle in it, and the emigration of papists in great numbers to other countries was allowed, if not encouraged. Though at this period a regard to liberty as well as to economy, occasioned the disbanding of all the army in England, except 7,000, it was thought necessary for the security of Ireland that an army of 12,000 men should be kept there; and for many years afterwards it was not allowed that this army should be recruited in this kingdom. This distinction of parties in Ireland was in those times the mainspring in every movement relative to that kingdom, and affected not only political but commercial regulations. The reason assigned by the English statute, allowing the exportation of Irish linen cloth to the plantations, is, after reciting the restrictive law of 1663,[401] "_yet_, forasmuch as the Protestant interest of Ireland ought to be supported, by giving the utmost encouragement to the linen manufactures of that kingdom, in tender regard to her Majesty's good Protestant subjects of her said kingdom, be it enacted," &c.

The papists, then disabled from acquiring permanent property in lands, had not the same interest with Protestants in the defence of their country and in the prosperity of the British Empire. But those seeds of disunion and diffidence no longer remain. No man looks now for the return of the exiled family any more than for that of Perken Warbec; and the repeal of Magna Charta is as much expected as of the Act of Settlement. The papists, indulged with the exercise of their religious worship, and now at liberty to acquire permanent property in lands, are interested as well as Protestants in the security and prosperity of this country; and sensible of the benign influence of our Sovereign, and of the protection and happiness which they enjoy under his reign, seem to be as well affected to the King and to the constitution of the State as any other class of subjects, and at this most dangerous crisis have contributed their money to raise men for his Majesty's service, and declared their readiness, had the laws permitted, to have taken arms for the defence of their country. They owe much to the favour and protection of the Crown, and to the liberal and benevolent spirit of the British legislature which led the way to their relief, and they are peculiarly interested to cultivate the good opinion of their Sovereign, and of their fellow-subjects in Great Britain.

The numbers of our people, since the year 1698, are more than doubled; but in point of real strength to the British Empire are increased in a proportion of above eight to one. In the year 1698 the numbers of our people did not much, if at all, exceed one million. Of these 300,000 are thought to be a liberal allowance for Protestants of all denominations. It is now supposed that there are not less in this kingdom than 2,500,000 loyal and affectionate subjects to his Majesty, and well affected to the constitution and happiness of their country.

A political and commercial constitution, if it could have been considered as wisely framed for the years 1663, 1670, and 1698, ought to be reconsidered in the year 1779; what might have been good and necessary policy in the government of one million of men disunited among themselves, and a majority of them not to be relied upon in support of their king and of the laws and constitution of their country, is bad policy in the government of two millions and a-half of men now united among themselves, and all interested in the support of the Crown, the laws, and the constitution.

What might have been sufficient employment, and the means of acquiring a competent subsistence for one million of people, when a man, by working two days in the week, might have earned a sufficient support for him and his family, will never answer for two millions and a-half of people,[402] when the hard labour of six days in the week can scarcely supply a scanty subsistence. Nor can the resources which enabled us in the last century to remit L200,000 yearly to England[403] support remittances to the amount of more than six times that sum.

Let the reasons for this restrictive system at the time of its formation be examined, and let us judge impartially whether any one of the purposes then intended has been answered. The reasons respecting America were to confine the Plantation trade to England, and to make that country a storehouse of all commodities for its colonies. But the commercial jealousy that has prevailed among the different states of Europe has made it difficult for any nation to keep great markets to herself in exclusion of the rest of the world. It was not foreseen at those periods that the colonies, whilst they all continued dependent, should have traded with foreign nations, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of Great Britain to prevent it. It was not foreseen that those colonies would have refused to have taken any commodities whatever from their parent country, that they should afterwards have separated themselves from her empire, declared themselves independent, resisted her fleets and armies, obtained the most powerful alliances, and occasioned the most dangerous and destructive war in which Great Britain was ever engaged. Nor could it have been foreseen that Ireland, excluded from almost all direct intercourse with them, should have been nearly undone by the contest. The reasons then respecting America no longer exist, and whatever may be the event of the conflict, will never exist to the extent expected when this system of restraints and penalties was adopted.

The reasons relating to Ireland have failed also. The circumstances of this country relative to the woollen manufacture are totally changed since the year 1699. The Lords and Commons of England appear to have founded the law of that year on the proportion which they supposed that the charge of the woollen manufacture in England then bore to the charge of that manufacture in Ireland. In the representation from the Commissioners of Trade, laid before both houses,[404] they think it a reasonable conjecture to take the difference between both wool and labour in the two countries to be one-third; and estimating on that supposition, they find that 43-7/8 per cent. may be laid on broadcloth exported out of Ireland, more than on the like cloth exported out of England, to bring them both to an equality. This must have been an alarming representation to England.

But if those calculations were just at the time, which is very doubtful, the supposed facts on which they were founded do certainly no longer exist. Wool is now generally at a higher price in Ireland than in England, and the trifling difference in the price of labour is more than overbalanced by this and the other circumstances in favour of England, which have been before stated; and that those facts supposed in 1698, and the inferences drawn from them, have no foundation in the present state of this country is plain from the experience every day, which shows that instead of our underselling the English, they undersell us in our own markets.

Besides our exclusion from foreign markets, England had two objects in the discouragement of our woollen trade.

It was intended that Ireland should send her wool to England, and take from that country her woollen manufactures.[405] It has been already shown that the first object has not been attained, the second has been carried so far as, for the future, to defeat its own purpose. Whilst our own manufacturers were starving for want of employment, and our wool sold for less than one-half its usual price, we have imported from England, in the years 1777 and 1778, woollen goods to the enormous amount of L715,740 13_s._ 0_d._, as valued at our Custom House, and of the manufactures of linen, cotton, and silk mixed, to the amount of L98,086 1_s._ 11_d._, making in the whole in those two years of distress, L813,826 14_s._ 11_d._[406] Between 20 and 30,000 of our manufacturers in those branches were in those two years supported by public charity. From this fact it is hoped that every reasonable man will allow the necessity of our using our own manufactures. Agreements among our people for this purpose are not, as it has been supposed, a new idea in this country. It was never so universal as at present, but has been frequently resorted to in times of distress. In the sessions of 1703, 1705, and 1707,[407] the House of Commons resolved unanimously, that it would greatly conduce to the relief of the poor and the good of the kingdom, that the inhabitants thereof should use none other but the manufactures of this kingdom in their apparel and the furniture of their houses; and in the last of those sessions the members engaged their honours to each other, that they would conform to the said resolution. The not importing goods from England is one of the remedies recommended by the council of trade in 1676, for alleviating some distress that was felt at that time;[408] and Sir William Temple, a zealous friend to the trade and manufactures of England, recommends to Lord Essex, then Lord Lieutenant, "to introduce, as far as can be, a vein of parsimony throughout the country in all things that are not perfectly the native growths and manufactures."[409]

The people of England cannot reasonably object to a conduct of which they have given a memorable example.[410] In 1697 the English House of Lords presented an address to King William to discourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and cloths, not of the growth or manufacture of that kingdom; and beseech him by his royal example effectually to encourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and wearing cloths that are the growth of that kingdom, or manufactured there; and King William assures them that he would give the example to his subjects,[411] and would endeavour to make it effectually followed. The reason assigned by the Lords for this address was that the trade of the nation had suffered by the late long and expensive war. But it does not appear that there was any pressing necessity at the time, or that their manufacturers were starving for want of employment.

Common sense must discover to every man that, where foreign trade is restrained, discouraged, or prevented in any country, and where that country has the materials of manufactures, a fruitful soil, and numerous inhabitants, the home-trade is its best resource. If this is thought, by men of great knowledge, to be the most valuable of all trades,[412] because it makes the speediest and the surest returns, and because it increases at the same time two capitals in the same country, there is no nation on the globe whose wealth, population, strength, and happiness would be promoted by such a trade in a greater degree than ours.[413]

Two other reasons were assigned for this prohibition: that the Irish had shown themselves unwilling to promote the linen manufacture,[414] and that there were great quantities of wool in Ireland. But they have since cultivated the linen trade with great success, and great numbers of their people are employed in it. Of late years by the operation of the land-carriage bounty, agriculture has increased in a degree never before known in this country; extensive tracts of lands, formerly sheep-pasture, are now under tillage, and much greater rents are given for that purpose than can be paid by stocking with sheep; the quantity of wool is greatly diminished from what it was in the year 1699, supposing it to have been then equal to the quantity in 1687,[415] it has been for several years lessening, and is not likely to be increased. In those two important circumstances the grounds of the apprehensions of England have ceased, and the state of Ireland has been materially altered since the year 1699.

Another reason respecting England and foreign States, particularly France, has failed. England was, in 1698, in possession of the woollen trade in most of the foreign markets, and expected still to continue to supply them, as appears by the preamble of her Statute passed in that year.

She at that time expected to keep this manufacture to herself. The people of Leeds, Halifax, and Newberry,[416] petition the House of Commons "that by some means the woollen manufacture may be prevented from being set up in foreign countries;" and the Commons, in their address, mention the keeping it as much as possible _entire_ to themselves. But experience has proved the vanity of those expectations; several other countries cultivate this trade with success. France now undersells her. England has lost some of those markets, and it is thought probable that Ireland, if admitted to them, might have preserved and may now recover the trade that England has lost.

A perseverance in this restrictive policy will be ruinous to the trade of Great Britain. Whatever may be the state of America, great numbers of the inhabitants of Ireland, if the circumstances of this country shall continue to be the same as at present in respect of trade, will emigrate there; this will give strength to that part of the empire on which Great Britain can least, and take it from that part on which at present she may most securely depend. But this is not all the mischief; those emigrants will be mostly manufacturers, and will transfer to America the woollen and linen manufactures, to the great prejudice of those trades in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and then one of the means used to keep the colonies dependent by introducing this country into a system of colonisation, will be the occasion of lessening, if not dissolving, the connection between them and their parent State.

Great Britain, weakened in her extremities, should fortify the heart of her empire; Great Britain, with powerful foreign enemies united in lasting bonds against her, and with scarcely any foreign alliance to sustain her, should exert every possible effort to strengthen herself at home. The number of people in Ireland have more than doubled in fourscore years. How much more rapid would be the increase if the growth of the human race was cherished by finding sufficient employment and food for this prolific nation! it would probably double again in half a century. What a vast accession of strength such numbers of brave and active men, living almost within the sound of a trumpet, must bring to Great Britain, now said to be decreasing considerably in population!--a greater certainty than double those numbers dispersed in distant parts of the globe, the expense of defending and governing of which must at all times be great. Sir W. Temple,[417] in 1673, takes notice of the circumstances prejudicial to the trade and riches of Ireland, which had hitherto, he says, made it of more loss than value to England. They have already been mentioned. The course of time has removed some of them, and the wisdom and philanthropy of Britain may remove the rest. "Without these circumstances (says that honest and able statesman), the native fertility of the soils and seas, in so many rich commodities, improved by multitudes of people and industry, with the advantage of so many excellent havens, and a situation so commodious for all sorts of foreign trade, must needs have rendered this kingdom one of the richest in Europe, and made a mighty increase both of strength and revenue to the crown of England."[418]

During this century, Ireland has been, without exaggeration, a mine of wealth to England, far beyond what any calculation has yet made it. When poor and thinly inhabited she was an expense and a burden to England; when she had acquired some proportion of riches and grew more numerous, she was one of the principal sources of her wealth. When she becomes poor again, those advantages are greatly diminished. The exports from Great Britain to Ireland, in 1778,[419] were less than the medium value of the four preceding years in a sum of L634,444 3_s._ 0_d_; and in the year 1779, Great Britain is obliged, partly at her own expense, to defend this country, and for that purpose has generously bestowed out of her own exchequer a large sum of money. Those facts demonstrate that the poverty of Ireland ever has been a drain, and her riches an influx of wealth to England, to which the greater part of it will ever flow, and it imports not to that country through what channel; but the source must be cleared from obstructions, or the stream cannot continue to flow.

Such a liberal system would increase the wealth of this kingdom by means that would strengthen the hands of government, and promote the happiness of the people. Ireland would be then able to contribute largely to the support of the British Empire, not only from the increase of her wealth, but from the more equal distribution of it into a greater number of hands among the various orders of the community. The present inability of Ireland arises principally from this circumstance, that her lower and middle classes have little or no property, and are not able, to any considerable amount, either to pay taxes or consume those commodities that are the usual subjects of them; and this has been the consequence of the laws which prevent trade and discourage manufactures. The same quantity of property distributed through the different classes of the people would supply resources much superior to those which can be found in the present state of Ireland.[420] The increase of people there under its present restraints makes but a small addition to the resources of the State in respect of taxes.[421] In 1685, the amount of the inland excise in Ireland was L75,169. In 1762, it increased only to L92,842. Those years are taken as periods of a considerable degree of prosperity in Ireland. The people had increased, from 1685 to 1762, in a proportion of nearly 7 to 4,[422] which appears from this circumstance, that in 1685 hearth-money amounted to L32,659, and in 1762 to L56,611. At the former period the law made to restrain and discourage the principal trade and manufacture of Ireland had not been made. There were then vast numbers of sheep in Ireland, and the woollen manufacture was probably in a flourishing state. At the former of those periods the lower classes of the people were able to consume excisable commodities; in the latter they lived for the most part on the immediate produce of the soil. The numbers of people in a state, like those of a private family, if the individuals have the means of acquiring, add to the wealth, and if they have not those means, to the poverty of the community. Population is not always a proof of the prosperity of a nation; the people may be very numerous and very poor and wretched. A temperate climate, fruitful soil, bays and rivers well stocked with fish, the habits of life among the lower classes, and a long peace, are sufficient to increase the numbers of people: these are the true wealth of every state that has wisdom to encourage the industry of its inhabitants, and a country which supplies in abundance the materials for that industry. If the state or the family should discourage industry, and not allow one of the family to work, because another is of the same trade, the consequences to the great or the little community must be equally fatal.

Is there not business enough in this great world for the people of two adjoining islands, without depressing the inhabitants of one of them? Let the magnanimity and philanthropy of Great Britain address her poor sister kingdom in the same language which the good-natured Uncle Toby uses to the fly in setting it at liberty:--"Poor fly; there's room enough for thee and me."

I have the honour to be,
My Lord, &c.

Ninth Letter.

_Dublin, 10th Sept., 1779._

MY LORD,

Besides those already mentioned, various other commercial restraints and prohibitions give the British trader and manufacturer many great and important advantages over the Irish. Whilst our markets are at all times open to all their productions and manufactures, with inconsiderable duties on the import, their markets are open or shut against us as suits their conveniency. On several articles of the first importance, and on almost all our own manufactures imported into Great Britain, duties are imposed equal to a prohibition. In the instance of woollen goods, theirs in our ports pay but a small duty; ours in their ports are loaded with duties[423] which amount to a prohibition.[424] Theirs on the exportation are subject to no duty; ours, if permitted to be exported, would, as the law now stands, be subject to a duty[425] over and above that payable for alnage and for the alnager's fee. If the Act of 1699 was repealed, the English would still have many great advantages over us in the woollen trade.

In our staple manufacture, the bounties given on the exportation of white and brown Irish linen from Great Britain would still continue that trade in the hands of the British merchant. On all coloured linens a duty[426] equal to a prohibition is imposed on the importation into Great Britain; but theirs, imported to us, are subject[427] to ten per cent., and under that duty they have imported considerably. This inequality of duty, and the bounty given by the British Act of the tenth of Geo. III., on the exportation of their chequered and striped linens from Great Britain, secures to them the continuance of the great superiority which they have acquired over us in those very valuable branches of this trade. In many other articles they have given themselves great advantages. Beer they export to us in such quantities as almost to ruin our brewery; but they prevent our exportation to them by duties, laid on the import there, equal to a prohibition. Of malt they make large exports to us, to the prejudice of our agriculture, but have absolutely prohibited our exportation of that commodity to them. Some manufactures they retain solely to themselves, which we are prohibited from exporting, and cannot import from any country but Great Britain, as glass of all kinds. Hops they do not allow us to import from any other place, and in a facetious style of interdiction, pronounce such importation to be a common nuisance.[428] They go further, and by laying a duty on the export, and denying the draw-back, oblige the Irish consumer to pay a tax appropriated, it is said, to the payment of a British debt. I shall make no political, but the subject requires a commercial observation--it is this: the man who keeps a market solely to himself, in exclusion of all others, whether he appears as buyer[429] or seller, fixes his own price, and becomes the arbiter of the profit and loss of every customer.

The various manufactures[430] made or mixed with cotton are subject, by several British Acts, to duties on the importation amounting to 25 per cent.

By another Act, penalties[431] are imposed on wearing any of those manufactures in Great Britain, unless made in that country. Those laws have effectually excluded the Irish manufactures, in all those branches, from the British markets; and it has been already shown that they cannot be sent to the American. From Great Britain into Ireland all those articles are imported in immense quantities, being subject here to duties amounting to 10 per cent. only.

But it would be tedious to descend into a further detail, and disgusting to write a book of rates instead of a letter.[432]

Their superior capitals and expertness give them decisive advantages in every species of trade and manufacture. By the extension of the commerce of Ireland, Great Britain would acquire new and important advantages, not only by the wealth it would bring to that country, and the increase of strength to the empire, but by opening to the British merchant new sources of trade from Ireland.

It is time to draw to a conclusion. I have reviewed my letters to your lordship, for the purpose of avoiding every possible occasion of offence. I flatter myself every reader will discern that they have been written with upright and friendly intentions, not to excite jealousies, but to remove prejudices, to moderate, and conciliate; and that they are intended as an appeal, not to the passions of the multitude, but to the wisdom, justice, and generosity of Britain. Shakespeare could place a tongue in every wound of Caesar; but Antony meant to inflame; and the only purpose of those letters is to persuade. I have, therefore, not even removed the mantle except where necessity required it.